ave been a warning to them, but when was love ever
warned? He espoused her and they took up their abode in this wonderful
old palace, fitting home of romance.

As we gazed upon the matchless courtyard: the overhanging eaves, the
rounded arches of the balcony with their graceful and refined pillars,
the exquisitely-carved ceilings and staircase of rich black oak: the
latter wide enough to drive up a coach and four: we felt that here love
might reign for ever. And probably it would have lasted long; for the
lady, as history says, had all graces of the spirit as well as all the
charm of exquisite form and feature: whilst her knight was true as the
needle to the pole, constant as death.

They were happy in each other; life was a paradise; and when did such a
perfect condition of things ever last? Paradise is not for this world.

Five summers and winters passed and found them still devoted to each
other. Every day was a dream. Then a cruel visitation came to their
town: an epidemic, sparing not high or low. It attacked the fair Lucia:
and though her husband nursed her night and day, and all the leeches of
the town combined their skill and judgment to save her, a stronger power
than theirs was against them.

The last day dawned; instinct told her that another sun for her could
never rise. Her husband bent over her in an agony of grief. She clasped
her fair, frail arms around his neck.

"My love, my love, we have been very happy: all in all to each other,"
she murmured. "These five years, an eternity of bliss, have yet flown
swiftly as a day. You have been good--so good; dear--so dear. Perhaps it
is well to die thus and now, with all our youth, and all our dreams, and
all our illusions undispelled. Eternity will restore us to each other. I
leave you with not one mark on the delicate bloom of our great love."

She died and he was not to be consoled. His people offered to be
reunited to him but he would none of them.

It was the time of the War of Succession. Into this he madly plunged,
seeking death and finding it. As a rule death is said to avoid those who
court him; but here it was not so. The knight, faithful to the end, was
found upon the battlefield, his eyes wide open, looking upon the
heavens; where perhaps he saw the vision of his lovely wife, whilst her
miniature lay next his heart.

The house still stands much as it stood in those days, but two centuries
older. It is the most beautiful in Zaragoza, perhaps has